Schadenfreude
by TheVerbalThing ComesAndGoes
Summary: "You treat me like crap," Anya laments. "You always treat me like crap. Why?" Her face crumbles and her voices cracks, the beginnings of tears shining in her eyes. Holly J swallows thickly; it's one of the rare occasions she feels actual remorse. Still, her own response is certain, and without doubt: "Because you let me."


Schadenfreude - pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

Summary: "Why are you such a bitch?" An answer. A Holly J one-shot.

Setting: season 8

**A/N**: (slightly) revised and re-posted.

* * *

She's miserable.

For all of her academic achievements and power and boasting of accomplishments, none of that seems to matter as much as she thought they would. Not when she overhears her parents arguing about money and overdue bills and final notices, her mother claiming a life of scraping pennies together is not the kind of life she signed up for. Not when Heather is constantly letting Holly J know how _she _would do things if she were still stomping through the halls of Degrassi.

Her mother raps her sharply on the back, her knuckles knocking painfully against the vertebrae of Holly J's spine. "Sit up straight. And fix your collar. How can you expect people to take you seriously when you look like that? _Honestly_, Holly J."

Holly J feels her cheeks flush with anger and embarrassment, but, still, she does as she's told. The Sinclair women have always seemed to be in possession of the ability to make the air around them shrink, and to make anyone within their radius feel as though they were a mere two feet tall in standing. They are good at stepping on others in a vain attempt to make themselves feel better.

It never works, of course, but that doesn't keep them from trying.

She pushes her shoulders back, straightens her collar, and glances in the mirror once last time to be sure her ponytail doesn't have a strand of hair out of place. She doesn't smile back at her reflection.

"Good girl."

She's _miserable._

It's the only logical explanation for the things she does. She's miserable and she hates it, and even though she cannot exactly pinpoint the reason, Holly J is absolutely certain that the world owes her something for her suffering.

She thinks she kind of likes the fact that she can string Blue along. He can be put on the back burner whenever she's distracted and picked back up, still warm and waiting for her to make a decision, whenever she finds the time. It helps her to keep a steady list of the people she can use and abuse at her whim.

"...I can't do this anymore; playing the waiting game. I've _had_ it, Holly J." This is always his parting line and he always seems to think that he can mean it. She would feel sorry for him, if only it weren't so pathetic, if only she didn't know that he never means it.

She pretends to be contrite and repentant as she smacks Mia's notebook out of her hands, sending sheets of paper flying to the floor in a disorganized heap. "Whoops."

Mia's attention had been focused solely on reading its contents, her brows furrowed and lips puckered in concentration. It seemed important. Holly J tells herself not to care whether or not that's actually the case and finds that it is surprisingly easy. "Oh. I am _so_ sorry. Were you reading that?"

"Thanks, Holly J. You always know just how to brighten my day." Mia's sarcasm has grown in strength but Holly J stomps on any possible feelings of pride she may have had before they can climb to the surface. Mia frowns as Holly J smirks, proof positive that Holly J is succeeding in her attempts to get under her skin.

She doesn't like the fact that Mia is getting more and more involved with school and extracurricular activities, or that she is trying so hard to be known as someone other than Lucas' Baby Mama. Holly J is surprised that Mia is so ambitious; it doesn't sit well with her that Mia is close to getting everything she's ever wanted while Holly J has to work so hard just to stay on the _trenches_ of the inner circle.

Jealousy would be a simple enough explanation, would wrap up all her feelings in a nice neat bow - but it's more than that, goes deeper than her desire to be liked more, but she can't pinpoint the reason specifically. It's like this uncontrollable, unstoppable _being_ that overtakes her.

She is unhappy with her life, but cannot figure out the exact moment in time when that happened, when she became controlled by her misery, rather than the other way around.

It must have happened ages before she realized she would always have to play second best next to her older sister; but still sometime before it was thrust in her face that an entire _population_ of people despised her. It was a moment in between all this, she thinks, when Anya found Sav and realized Mia wasn't an unworthy person just because she couldn't wait past adolescence to start procreating. It was when Anya realized that there was a whole world of people out there, and that she didn't have to suffer in the wake of Holly J's misery if she didn't want to. She had a _choice_. Holly J didn't have to be anything more to Anya than a last resort. Anya didn't have to play the role of The Unimportant Minion.

And, no surprise, she didn't want to.

Defeat is not something that a Sinclair woman takes on well. Holly J will go down kicking and screaming, if that's what it takes to win, even if she has to drag her best friend of eight years down to the ground with her.

"You treat me like crap," Anya laments. "You _always_ treat me like crap. Why?" Her face crumbles and her voices cracks, the beginnings of tears shining in her eyes. Holly J swallows thickly; it's one of the rare occasions she feels actual remorse.

Her own response is certain, and without doubt: "Because you let me."

It really is that simple. She'd be nothing and no one if they didn't let her douse their dreams in kerosene and light the match that ruins them.

If people, like Anya, didn't let her. It's people like Anya that have _made _her.

Without them to crush, Holly J doesn't think that she would have a leg to stand on.

...

_fin_.


End file.
